Mint and Cherries
by december wastelands
Summary: "Since Ray and Hazel have been stealing all the strawberries — which I don't like anyway — let's just go have some ice cream at Ben and Jerry's." OCxOC.


**Title: **Mint and Cherries

**Summary: **"Since Ray and Hazel have been stealing all the strawberries — which I don't like anyway — let's just go have some ice cream at Ben and Jerry's." OCxOC.

**A/N: **for my beloved forum (FanFiction ImagiNation) mother, Hilda, and her birthday. Hilda/Mint Chocolate Chip Guy is underrated — won't make sense if you're not from FI. Minor spoilers for that PJO AU we never wrote (loosely related), and some language.

* * *

As Ray and Hazel ran through the strawberry fields once more, Yew finally launched into action, which meant shouting profanities at them and trying to get them to _drop the damn strawberries. _Like the mature demigods they were, they laughed a few dozen meters from his face, popped a few strawberries in their mouths, and then ran right into Andie so they could disappear in a flash of shadows.

Yew failed to chase after them before they disappeared, because _putting in physical effort. _No. Just no.

"They really should stop doing that," Hilda noted, covering her hand with her mouth so it didn't look like she secretly approved. She dug her plastic spoon into her tub of Cherry Garcia ice cream, admiring the way the sun shone on her McCall hoodie.

Her companion, Pia, nodded in agreement, but seemed to find it amusing nevertheless. She scooped up some more ice cream and was about to lick it off the spoon when she suddenly said, "Three o'clock. Looks familiar."

Hilda glanced toward the general direction her friend had indicated and saw a boy strolling leisurely toward them, his eyes fixated on the still swearing Yew. "Oh, that's Chip. He's in most of my classes; he's sort of new, arrived last week."

"You've been telling us about him!" Pia smiled over the top of her spoon. "You think he's so cute." Dropping her spoon into the tub of ice cream, she patted Hilda's arm. "Quick, _quick_ — he's coming this way! Talk!" Hilda stared blankly as Pia morphed into a seagull and flew off, making loud seagull noises. Freaking Hecate powers.

"Why'd you bring two lawn chairs?"

"Huh?" She glanced up through her sunglasses, seeing Chip (or Minty, as some campers affectionately/not-so-affectionately called him, due to the ice cream flavor mint chocolate chip) standing over her.

"You have two." He pointed rather obviously to the empty lawn chair Pia had occupied before the Asian had flown off to a place where she'd probably spy on them. "Did you plan to use only one and have another for emergencies?"

Hilda silently agreed with Yew when it was brought up. Putting in physical effort for something that likely would not happen (Exhibit A: catching Ray and Hazel. Exhibit B: a broken lawn chair, which Pia could probably fix somehow.) was just a huge no-no. Perhaps it was the demigod impulsivity. "Uh, no. I just. . .sit down."

Wiping his forehead — sweat was gathering at his brow — he sat down, causing the chair to creak slightly. Then he raised an eyebrow at the half-empty tub of Cherry Garcia. "Did you plan to sit out here all afternoon, letting that melt?"

"If you want to eat some," she offered, slowly taking off her sunglasses because it looked badass. "Then you can." She was abruptly interrupted by a particularly loud seagull noise, and she glanced at the Big House roof, where it was coming from. The situation that awaited her was Pia hopping back and forth and smacking herself into the weather vane.

Well. Wasn't that delightful.

Like it wasn't obvious she was dying from shipper feels. She seemed oddly supportive of this, despite the fact she was supposed to be symbolically "married" to Hilda, with a daughter named Angel in her cabin. Then again, a shipper did not pass up an opportunity for shipping.

Pia whacked the weather vane once more, making crow-like cawing sounds, and flew off toward the north. Toward the boundaries of the camp.

"Thanks," Chip said, grinning at her toothily and ignoring the crazed seagull. He picked up a spare spoon, as she'd been too lazy to open up the box and fish out just two separate ones for her and Pia, and dug in.

Then, right on cue, Ray and Hazel returned. Hilda promptly realized that Pia had flown off in the direction of the cabins. This was totally, one hundred percent unfunny. _Awkward much?_

Seriously, _fuck _Pia.

And not in that way.

Yew dragged himself upwards again from where he'd been supervising the satyrs (read: writing poetry in his notebook; dyslexia made him swear a lot when he was writing out of frustration, but he managed it), ready for another round of being absolutely _fucking tired of everyone's shit, _but was surprised when Ray and Hazel only picked one or two strawberries apiece and hurried to Hilda.

Whatever. Wasn't his problem.

"Hi, Mint Chocolate Chip!" Ray said with a bright-eyed smile. She was a bit of a new arrival herself, barely two weeks here; Hilda didn't even want to think about how much the gods had been "breeding" since the end of the Second Titanomachy, apparently to "prevent demigods from becoming extinct." Newbies were always arriving. "I'm Ray, and this is Hazel. We're the welcoming committee — a self-appointed one, shut up, Hazel — and we just decided to welcome you."

Chip looked dubiously at the hand Ray offered him, and Hilda didn't blame him in the least. Also, he really w_as _quite cute. "Uh, hi? My name's not actually Mint Chocolate Chip. It's nice to meet you."

"Yeah, my name's not Hazelmallorn," Hazel piped up, nodding vigorously. "And Ray isn't a Supernatural demon, no matter what she says. And Hilda isn't Cherry Garcia ice cream. But we can all pretend, right? Anyway, you could be worse."

"Remember Musa and Kyubey?" Ray asked, jabbing Hazel in the side. She laughed, biting off half a strawberry and plucking leaves from it. They drifted to the ground in blurs of green as she continued. "Came here with a photo of that. . .Kyubey thing in her album, and she ends up being Lucycat. Devouring people's souls, eating its own body."

Chip seemed vaguely bewildered, but not like he was going to run off screaming anytime soon, when Hazel suddenly said, "By the way, you two?" She pointed to Hilda, then him.

Ray finished deadpan, "You're so cute. And hormonal." She nodded. "We're going to write fanfic about you."

Hilda was ready to pull her bow out and shoot them both, but she was afraid of Cupid analogies and more connections to shipping, so she just swallowed down as much ice cream she could. Besides, she didn't want her siblings to have to be the ones to heal them.

Yew had faded from the scene, poetically speaking, and a girl named Mel had arrived and was trying to negotiate with Ray and Hazel. They were laughing again and grabbing fistfuls of strawberries, dumping them into baskets, but were nodding along with Mel now as she spoke. Vines coiled loosely around them, and —

"ANDIE! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Dropping maybe a few of their strawberries, the duo sent the resigned Mel a wink before running into a blur of shadows.

"That's the end of that, I hope," Hilda said, watching the skies for a certain seagull she was quite prepared to kill. She saw her "daughter," Angel, walk by with a copy of _The Book Thief _and a girl named Irma, but that was all. The secretive and mysterious rumors of an Ultimate Shipper named Joan had vanished into the air, even though the timing would have been perfect for her to burst onto the scene.

She put the lid on the Cherry Garcia and said, "Since Ray and Hazel have been stealing all the strawberries — which I don't like anyway — let's just go have some ice cream at Ben and Jerry's."

Chip, looking a little worn-down, nodded in agreement. _I think I just asked him on a date._

In the distance, a seagull circled above Camp Half-blood, and Ray and Hazel posted a certain writing challenge.


End file.
